High-performance liquid chromatographic method for the quantitation of a meta-O-dealkylated metabolite of flecainide acetate, a new antiarrhythmic.

A simple, sensitive and selective high-performance liquid chromatographic method has been developed to analyze meta-O-dealkylated flecainide, a major metabolite of flecainide acetate, in human biological fluids. Sample preparation is accomplished through the use of bonded-phase extraction columns and the samples are chromatographed on a reversed-phase system with fluorescence detection. An external calibration method is used for quantitation and the inter-day and intra-day precision and accuracy are good. The method has been used to determine metabolite levels in samples from healthy subjects and patients with arrhythmias or renal impairment.